Processing facilities are often managed using industrial process control systems. Example processing facilities include manufacturing plants, chemical plants, crude oil refineries, ore processing plants, and paper or pulp manufacturing and processing plants. Among other things, industrial process control systems typically include controllers that receive measurement data from sensors and provide control signals to actuators in the processing facilities.
Field devices (such as sensors and actuators) in an industrial process control system are often provided by multiple manufacturers. Often times, a process control system is configured to operate with specific types of field devices. If a field device fails, an operator is typically faced with either locating an identical field device or reconfiguring the control system to work with a new field device.